As any observer could have predicted, patience ran
out in Cote d’Ivoire and guns that had been
silent for two years became active over the past weekend,
with the government of Laurent Gbagbo launching an
all-out air attack on rebel positions, and in the
process “mistakenly” killing 9 French
soldiers. In retaliation, President Jacques Chirac
of France ordered his troops in Cote d’Ivoire
to neutralize Ivorian air power. The French military
destroyed Ivorian military planes, took control of
the airport in Abidjan and closed it to civilian flights
after a long battle with Ivorian military. President
Gbagbo called on Ivorians to get out and “liberate”
the airport. Hundreds of thousands swarmed through
the city, ransacking French businesses, homes and
schools, burning and breaking everything on their
way to the airport. They encircled the French Military
base and the French soldiers responded by shooting
from two helicopters that hovered over the burning
city of Abidjan for two days. Things calmed down on
Sunday evening after President Gbagbo called off the
demonstrations. The United Nations Security Council
on Saturday condemned Cote d’Ivoire and supported
the actions of the French government

Since a group of soldiers from a garrison in the
central city of Bouaké failed to seize power
when they attempted to overthrow the government of
Laurent Gbagbo on September 19, 2002, Cote d’Ivoire,
the once stable and prosperous country of Houphouet
Boigny has been in a dangerous state of no-peace no-war.
After failing to take control of the economic capital
Abidjan, the rebels retreated to their base and French
troops, stationed in the country created a buffer
zone between government troops and the dissidents.
Thus, began a long “peace process” that
primarily tried to appease the dissidents, who were
first called “mutineers,” than “rebels,”
and are now referred to as “new forces.”
The semantic gymnastics never disguise the fact that
the rebellion divided the country in two parts, with
the government of Laurent Gbagbo controlling the south
and the rebel camping in the second largest city in
the north.

Numerous peace talks took place, first in Africa
– Dakar, Lomé and Accra – and finally
in Paris where the two sides signed a peace document
that became known as The Marcoussis Accords. The agreement
called for a government of “national unity”
with a neutral “prime minister.” Seydou
Diarra was acceptable to both sides. Muslim, originally
from the North, he is well known in Abidjan. Although
he had the authority to form the government, he had
really no power. The government of Gbagbo was dismantled.
Every political party in the country was given a seat
in the new government and the rebels got 8 ministries,
including Justice and Information. President Gbagbo
gave little, if any power at all to the Prime Minister.
His excuse, backed by the constitution was that “Cote
d’Ivoire was not a parliamentarian system where
the party with most seats in the Assembly nominates
the Prime Minister and runs the country…”
The peace accord also called for disarmament of “both
sides” and the restructuring of the national
army and the passing of new laws and constitutional
amendments to address rebels’ demands. From
the start, government troops made it known that they
would never submit to disarmament. The rebels took
their seat in the government in Abidjan and kept a
tight grip on territories under their control, which
represented almost half of the country.

The national assembly passed a first bill that accorded
total amnesty to the rebels for all acts of violence
committed during the war. As time went by, demands
of the rebellion multiplied. They wanted a constitutional
review of land tenure, abrogating a new law passed
in the 2000 constitution that barred most foreigners
and mostly citizens from Burkina Faso who have lived
in Cote d’Ivoire for decades for holding on
to lands they owned. They also demanded a review of
Article 35 of the constitution that stipulates that
only people born of Ivorian parentage and who had
never pledged allegiance to any other nation could
run for the presidency. This article barred Allasane
Ouatara, an opposition leader from seeking the presidency.
He is said to have carried a Burkina Faso passport
when he was young and later worked as President of
the West African Bank as a Burkina national. Ouattara
later became Prime minister under Houphouet Boigny
in the early 1990s. He was also a close friend of
military leader Robert Guei, who overthrew Konan Bedie,
the successor to Houphouet Boigny and passed the new
constitution.

In July 2004, after many months of stalling, the
government and the rebels met in Accra and reaffirmed
their commitment to the Marcoussis Accords. Political
reforms and the return of rebel ministers in the government
were to begin immediately while disarmament was set
for a few weeks later. The rebels returned to government
and the national assembly started to debate some of
the articles. The sticking point was that Article
35, as any portion of the constitution could only
be amended through a referendum. President Gbagbo
said he could not impose an amendment contrary to
the constitution. The rebels decided that they would
not disarm. The peace process was back to where it
stood 2 years ago.

Gbagbo came to the realization that the rebels would
not disarm peacefully and that negotiations would
lead nowhere. He bought arms and ammunitions from
Angola, including helicopters and two Russian military
jets. Last week, government troops blocked the two
main roads linking rebel territory to the capital.
On Wednesday afternoon, Gbagbo had a long telephone
conversation with French president Jacques Chirac
while rebel leaders were in Lome, Togo to meet with
President Eyadema.

Thursday, the Ivorian military jets start their attack
on the various rebel positions with ground troops
ready to follow suit. The jets bombarded ammunition
depots in Bouake, Man and neutralized the bridge between
Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire. On Friday, they
hit Bouake again. That is when things went wrong.
France claims that 9 of its troops who were in rebel
territory were killed in the bombing. French President
Chirac gave orders to his forces in Abidjan to neutralize
Ivorian air power. The French military destroyed two
jet-bombers and three helicopters. The news spread
quickly. Ivorians get in the street and attack French
interests. Homes are looted and set on fire. Many
French nationals – there are officially 16,000
French nationals living in the country – seek
refuge in the French military base. Meanwhile, France
brought in reinforcements from Gabon and others expected
from Senegal, countries where the former colonial
power holds military bases. On Saturday, Gbagbo met
with the ambassador of France. At the end of the meeting,
the Ivorian president calls on Ivorians to stop demonstrations
and return home. The chief of military operations
against the rebels called his troops back to base.

As of Sunday evening, calm returned to Abidjan. The
African Union asked President Tabo Mbeki of South
Africa to take charge of negotiations and he is due
in Abidjan on Tuesday, November 9. President Obasanjo
worked the phone throughout the weekend to calm tensions
in the sub-region. Now, the question is who would
be negotiating with Gbagbo? The French who stopped
him from taking control of the national territory
or the rebels?

Gbagbo and the Chirac regime are not the best of
friends. From the beginning of the crisis, France
has played an ambiguous, if not at times confusing,
role in the peace process. The rebels used Burkina
Faso as a backdoor. Burkina Faso president is a protégé
of France, somehow stepping into the shoes of Houphouet-Boigny
as the man of Paris in West Africa. Notwithstanding
his open implications in the destructive wars of Liberia
and Sierra Leone and backing the rebels in Cote d’Ivoire,
his name was never mentioned for sanctions at the
UN nor at the African Union. France could have forced
rebels to disarm from the start or could have asked
Blaise to put pressure on them but never did. Compaore
openly backed the rebels, many of whom lived and worked
in Ouagadougou, and made no secret in his personal
interest in land issues in Cote d’Ivoire.

Gbagbo has been a pain in the neck of France since
the late 1960s when he led university students and
teachers against the pro-French policies of Houphouet
Boigny. The opposition is crowded with people like
Konan Bedie, the natural heir to Houphouet, overthrown
in 1999 by the military coup of Guei. But mostly,
it’s the fate of Allasane Ouatara that has become
a national issue in Ivorian politics. A Muslim from
the North with parents originally from Burkina Faso,
he is married to Dominique, a powerful French woman
with strong political ties in Paris and who once managed
the real estate interests of Houphouet Boigny on three
continents. Both Konan Bedie and Guei barred him from
running for the presidency and he became the emblematic
figure of the disenfranchisement of Muslim northerners
in Ivorian politics.

Ouatara, at the head of the largest political party
in 2000, could have blocked the passing of the constitution
that later was used to bar him from contesting the
presidency. Rather, he went along, knowing fully well
that the text could be used to stop him. At the time,
he was very close to Guei and never expected that
the head of the military leader would run for president.

Gbagbo took a big gamble when he launched the attack
on the rebel territory. Had he known about the story
behind the Iraqi 1990 invasion of Kuwait, he might
have thought twice. Had he managed to stay clear of
the 9 French nationals, he might today be at the head
of a re-united Cote d’Ivoire and emerge as a
national hero. But, rather, he is weakened, blamed
by the international community and somehow forced
to accept a new French dictate. The rebels are also
weakened. Gbagbo destroyed most of their ammunitions
and their exit road to Burkina Faso. They are at the
mercy of France, just as Gbagbo is. Can France now
come up with a quick plan before the dust settles?

The stakes are high for France at this later stage
of the conflict. Having failed to impose a peaceful
solution, Chirac now has to deal with an almost dead
rebellion and a politically stronger Gbagbo. By urging
Ivorians to take back their airport from French troops
and succeeding in putting hundreds of thousands of
people in the streets for two days just as he did
in 2000 to oust Guei from power, Gbagbo has proven
that he has a power base. Although weakened militarily,
he has ignited nationalistic sentiments on both sides
of the divide. Villagers throughout the country built
roadblocks to stop French troops movements towards
Abidjan and created human shields around government
properties from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro to protect
them from being bombed by French jets on Friday and
Saturday.

For Ouattara, things have gone worst. With the growing
anti-French sentiments, he takes the blames for everything
that went wrong. He was said to be a close-ally of
General Guei and served as advisor to the military
until they fell off when Guei decided to run for president.
The greatest majority of the people in the north have
become wary of the rebels and those in the south mostly
never consider him as a leader. Whatever chance he
had in winning elections in Cote d’Ivoire may
have just evaporated with France’s intervening
directly in the conflict. The fact that Guillaume
Soro, his protégé and partisan is the
head of the rebel movement, and just a few years ago
a disciple of Laurent Gbagbo, makes Ouatara looks
like he is party to the destabilization in Cote d’Ivoire
for his personal ambitions.

Allasane Ouatara was the first to introduce xenophobic
laws into Cote d’Ivoire when, in 1990, as a
prime minister he decreed that all foreigners in Cote
d’Ivoire must pay for and carry a “carte
de séjour.” It was the first time, in
Ivorian history that people from Nigeria, Burkina
Faso and other places were forced to identify themselves
as “non-Ivorian.” This was the beginning
of “ivoirité” that Bedié
would later turn into a political tool.

France now has no other solution but to disarm the
rebels and ensure that Cote d’Ivoire goes to
elections, peacefully. Unless an unfortunate accident
happens to Gbagbo, he is more than ever assured of
his political future as the only Ivorian that stood
up to the French and survived.

Cote d’Ivoire may just be beginning its struggle
for independence, where French interests would no
longer be the sole indicators of national politics.
Whatever the outcome may be, relationships between
Cote d’Ivoire and France will never be the same,
no matter who takes over from Gbagbo.

A disintegration of the peace process in Cote d’Ivoire
could have dire consequences on the fragile situation
in Liberia where two of the former rebel groups, MODEL
and the NPFL have strong ties with the Gbagbo government
and the MPCI of Guillaume Soro respectively. During
disarmament exercises in Liberia, none of the factions
turned in their heavy weaponry and this could be interpreted
that they either sold or returned them to Cote d’Ivoire
or may be hiding them in Liberia. With the hundreds
of thousands of former fighters and millions of unemployed
youth, the sub-region is a social volcano that could
burst anytime. The political conflict and instability
are symptoms of deeper economic and social ills that
need to be addressed for real peace to take hold.
Forty years after independence, Africans seem to have
lesser control of their destiny than they had in the
1960s. And Cote d’Ivoire epitomizes that situation
very well.